This study estimates the effect of compulsory schooling on earnings. For identification, I exploit a German reform that extended the duration of secondary schooling in the 1960s. I find that hourly wages increase by 8% per additional year of schooling. This result challenges a study by Pischke...

Denominational schools are an important provider of education in many countries around the world. Due to their focus, these schools often operate with multigrade classes, in which more than one age cohort is taught in one classroom. Multigrade classes are a cost-effective way to provide...

The literature shows a wage premium for graduates from high quality, elite, or more selective universities. The results, however, exist for countries with a clear hierarchy of top universities, such as the US, England, and Australia. I evaluate if such an effect also exists in Germany, a country...

In the present paper, I develop an on-the-job search model in which workers face both frictional and structural impediments to sorting. There are two key model predictions. First, versatility enhances the worker’s ability to sort into the most productive firms since a mismatch between the job...

This paper examines the impact of parental investments on various skills during childhood using the Mannheim Study of Children at Risk (MARS). Our work offers three important innovations. First, we use reliable measures of the child's cognitive, mental and emotional skills as well as accurate...

This paper analyses the causal effects of educational mismatch on wages, individual health and job satisfaction. As educational mismatch is subject to unobserved heterogeneity in all of these fields, different identification strategies are applied to derive causal effects. In the wage...

We study the effect of the introduction of the German statutory minimum wage law in 2015 on teenagers' educational expectations. We focus on low-skilled students, the group most likely to be affected by the minimum wage after entering the labor market. Theoretical predictions of the effect of...

In this paper I investigate the causal returns to education for different educational groups in Germany. I circumvent potential drawbacks of IV by employing a new method by Klein and Vella (2010). In this approach identification is not based on instruments but on the presence of...